


sorry’s not the word, but please don’t thank me either

by ottermo



Series: out of the cave [6]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Abuse, Funeral, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Lots of Billy Hargrove Mentions, Not actually in the fic but referred to, Racism, Steve is a good dad but ultimately still a white teenager, death mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 05:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21238655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ottermo/pseuds/ottermo
Summary: Lucas and Steve, in the various aftermaths of Billy Hargrove.





	sorry’s not the word, but please don’t thank me either

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like I should give this fic a hefty author’s note to warn you that I’m in no way “qualified” to write this: I’m not and will never be a victim of racism, I’m not a survivor of childhood abuse. If there’s something I’ve not handled delicately, it’s out of ignorance (my own or Steve’s, because I thought it was safest to take this from his POV).  
Anyway, I just haven’t seen much Steve & Lucas out there, and I feel like they have Shared Stuff, you know, that the show might never touch on.  
This fic starts just after season 2 and carries on through the end of season 3.

The hospital staff, not thrilled by his father’s bedside manner once they finally convince him to come in, hold on to Steve a lot longer than he’d like. _ It’s only a concussion_, he keeps telling the nurses. One of them promises him wryly that the second he can say that four-word sentence without slurring or forgetting which one of her he was addressing, he can go home.

Steve takes that deal, and settles in to the stationary life of drifting in and out of lucidity while his body tries to right itself. It’s boring as hell and makes him feel feeble, knowing that the others have had to return to normal life, but there’s not much he can do except lie there. 

Dustin has promised daily visits, even after that embarrassing first encounter for which Steve is blaming the pain meds (and the fact that Dustin was definitely, _ definitely _ crying first). Yesterday he left a pack of marshmallows, stating regretfully that it would probably be a while before Steve could chew anything more substantial than that. 

In terms of visitors of the non-Dustinian kind, Hop came the first day, Joyce the second, and then Hop, then Joyce again this morning, which gives Steve the distinct impression that they’re taking it in turns, and have therefore had an actual conversation about making sure he doesn’t go a day without any visitors. Which, yeah, he’s not going to think about that too much, because, again, the pain meds, and it still hurts like a bitch to wipe his face. Thanks, Billy. 

Steve does find one brilliant side effect of the whole “vanishing consciousness” thing when Nancy comes to visit, because it’s just as awkward as he might have imagined only worse, and so at one point he murmurs something vague and closes his eyes. It’s definitely the coward’s way out, but he figures he’s earned it, and honestly it’s a kindness to them both. 

He opens his eyes after what he thinks is a few seconds, and slurs, “Sorry, wha’ were you sayin’?”

The person in the visitor’s seat looks back at him, confused. “Huh?” 

“Oh.” Steve blinks, and the image clears a little. “Thought you were Nancy.”

Lucas looks downright concerned now. 

“She was here,” Steve says, hoping that will do by way of explanation. It’s not that he’s ever been eloquent, but he definitely misses being able to say as many words as he wants. “Fell asleep.”

“Oh,” says Lucas. “Yeah. I saw them leaving.”

Steve’s eyebrow twitches, and thankfully Lucas hears the question in its entirety. “Her and Jonathan.”

Well, he should have worked that one out himself, probably. He wonders if it’s weird that Jonathan let her come into his room alone. He wonders if Jonathan had actually been there the whole time and he’d just not noticed. It’s amazing how many things you get to wondering when you’re stuck staring at the same patch of grey wall for hours on end. 

“So…. how are you doing,” Lucas asks, looking down at his hands. He suddenly looks really uncomfortable, but this isn’t the kind of awkward Steve is going to feign sleep to escape. If anything, it’s activated this new instinct of his, the one that lends him superstrength as long as there are kids who need him. He could stay awake for weeks. He could fight Billy all over again. He could… yeah, but now he’s let the silence go too long. 

“Not bad,” he says. “Jus’ concussion.” 

Lucas leaves at least as long a pause before he finally says, quiet enough that Steve can only just hear, “I just wanted to say sorry.” 

Steve does the eyebrow again, but this time punctuates it with, “What?”

“That you’re in here. Be-because of me.” 

That’s when Steve discovers a new thing about the current state of his face: it hurts to frown. 

“_Lucas_.” He tries to imbue as much meaning into the word as he can. He tries to make it mean, ‘Lucas, you can’t possibly think I blame you’ and ‘Lucas, I’d do it again in a heartbeat’, and ‘Lucas, nothing I could ever do for you is going to seem good enough, to me, to balance out the existence of Billy and people like him’. 

He can’t tell if it’s worked. 

“Don’ be sorry,” he manages to say. Then, because it’s true, “No’ because of _ you_. Because of Billy.” 

Lucas shrugs. “Same difference.”

“_No._” Apparently that comes out a little too fierce, because the kid actually flinches. To make up for it, Steve does his best impression of a person grinning. “So. ’Pology not accepted.” 

Lucas’s half-hearted attempt to return the smile is even less convincing. “Thanks, Steve.”

Then, because he’s kind of in-for-a-penny now with this whole thing and because there’s so much more he can’t work out how to say, Steve lifts himself ever so slightly away from the pillows and stretches towards Lucas. “Bring it in.” 

The boy looks doubtful. 

“Don’ leave me hangin’, Sinclair.” 

Lucas approaches him very gingerly at first, but there’s nothing much wrong with Steve’s arms, so he hugs the kid properly, and eventually it’s returned in kind. 

Soon after they let go, a nurse ushers Lucas out, and Steve doesn’t have time to ask if he has a ride home - he’s gone. 

* * *

Life has that weird, awful, brilliant way of going back to normal, snapping into place as if none of it ever happened. Billy’s still Billy, but less in Steve’s face about it, and if any of the other guys notice, they don’t point it out. Tommy H hangs around Billy the way he used to hang around Steve, and that suits Steve just fine, although it does come with a certain shudder, to think that anyone can find him and Billy interchangeable. Even at his worst, he doesn’t think he deserved that. But then, Tommy H is not a gifted judge of character. 

Steve finds that he enjoys being useful, and if Dustin and his friends want to exploit that, it’s totally fine by him. His car becomes his new best feature, not because it’s the best car in Hawkins (although he’s told it so more than once) but because it’s how he marks his own value in other people’s eyes. Which is stupid, he knows, but a hell of a lot less stupid than his old best feature, which (if he’s feeling charitable) was his hair or (if he’s not) his general propensity toward being a douchebag. 

Anyway, it’s what keeps him relevant in the kids’ lives, so he’s fine with it. Driving them around, picking them up, slinging bikes in the trunk whenever he happens upon one of them cycling home in the dark. Bad things happen to kids who cycle home in the dark. That’s an indelible truth among the people Steve keeps closest, these days. 

So when he spots the tell-tale tiny lights of a bike cycling down the hill in front of him one night in February, he’s ready with a few words of gentle reprimand once he recognises that it’s Lucas. Not that he gets to use them. 

“Hey,” he says, leaning on the half-down window. It’s raining, just a little, spots of water on his elbow. “Lucas. Get in.” 

Lucas keeps riding, though, so Steve coasts along next to him. “Hey! Shithead!”

Over the last few weeks he’s kind of eased off on that epithet, but it still serves its purpose every now and then. Lucas slows down, then stops. For some reason, he still doesn’t come to the car. Huffing, Steve gets out, letting the door slam. He zips up his jacket, not pleased to be out in the rain, but already worried enough that he won’t point it out. 

“What’s going on?” he says. “Talk to me.” 

Lucas doesn’t, so to give him a few seconds of thinking time, Steve prises the kid’s hands off the bike and puts it in his trunk. 

“I have your bike captive now,” he points out, walking the few steps back. “So—”

He’s cut off, winded, by Lucas suddenly flinging himself into his chest. Steve just about summons the presence of mind to hug back, concerned by how much he can feel Lucas shaking when he does so. It’s not _ that _ cold out. 

“Whoa, hey, you’re okay,” says Steve, and has to hope it’s true, because he has no context for this at all. Or does he? Technically, one of the places Lucas might have been coming from, in this direction, is Max’s house, and therefore, Billy’s house. But probably not, right? That’s just Steve making links, jumping to conclusions. “What happened?” he tries. 

Lucas’s grip loosens, and Steve transfers his hands to the kid’s shoulders, holding him in place while he has a good look at his face. He can’t see any marks, but it’s kind of dark out, after all. “Someone hurt you?” he asks. 

Lucas shakes his head. 

“Then—” Steve looks pleadingly at him. “Help me out here, kid. Where are you coming from?”

He’s not really surprised when Lucas says, “Max’s.” Or at least, he’s not surprised by the word. He hadn’t known Lucas’s voice could sound so small, so there’s that. 

“Did Billy…” God, Steve has no idea how that sentence ends. “Was it Billy?” That’s safer. 

“And his dad.”

“Shit,” Steve says, “Both of them? Shit.” Realising he still has Lucas by the shoulders, he gives them what he hopes is a comforting pat, painfully aware of how meagre it is. He tries not to get too distracted by how angry he is with Billy all over again. Not helpful to Lucas right now. The thing is, he doesn’t know what will be.

“Come sit in the car,” he says, “We’re getting soaked.” 

The rain is still light, but in Steve’s experience it gets you just as wet as a rainstorm, if you stand outside and ask it to. Something makes him bring Lucas round to the passenger side and see him safely in before he gets in himself, which is dumb considering Lucas doesn’t seem to be trying to escape. And that his bike’s in the trunk. But still. By the time Steve walks back round to the driver’s side, Lucas’s head is in his hands, and he’s not exactly crying but breathing like he’s really trying not to, which is almost worse for reasons Steve can’t quite put a finger on. He doesn’t start up the car, just checks the lights are still on, then sets a hand round Lucas’s shoulders and pulls him a little closer. 

“You wanna tell me about it?” he asks. 

“Not really.”

“Okay.” 

“They didn’t— nobody touched me,” Lucas says, and Steve nods acknowledgment even though he can’t be seen. “Usually, when it’s just… words, and stuff, it’s… not this bad.” 

The word ‘usually’ almost makes Steve wince out loud. Instead, he says, “Was this the first time you ran into Billy, since…” 

“No.” Lucas breathes deep. “I’ve seen him. But today was the first time he said anything. And I just...” He stops, swallows, continues faintly, “I’m scared of him.” 

He says it like it’s some shameful confession, not the most logical and understandable and downright sensible statement of this whole conversation. 

“Well… duh,” says Steve, intelligently. “If you weren’t, I’d be thinking, this guy has a really short memory.”

After a pause, Lucas says, “They yelled a bit. It was mostly at Max. For letting me be there.”

“Is Max okay?”

“They said... she would be, as long as I left. I don’t usually go there, I just… they were supposed to be out.” 

Steve hums, mostly to show he’s listening. What he’s closest to saying is, ‘Please don’t take that risk again’, but it’s not much use now. 

“It was like - it was like I was back there,” Lucas says, “At Will’s. And I - this time it was just me.” 

Steve tightens his grip around Lucas’s shoulders. “You got out of there. That was smart.” 

“Not smart. Scared.”

“You can be both, dummy.” 

After a moment, Steve says, “I think I should get you home,” and Lucas nods, and honestly it’s a wrench to let him go just to reach the steering wheel. 

“Thanks,” says Lucas, and Steve finds himself dreaming of a world where he doesn’t get thanked for not being Billy Hargrove. 

* * *

Steve only really gets restless on his second hospital stay once Robin has been discharged, partly because he misses having a sparring partner, but mostly because he’s taken to worrying about her whenever he can’t see her. It’s inconvenient and a bit over-dramatic and he’s sure it will wear off, but for now it just makes him miserable, enough that even Dustin’s visit doesn’t leave him smiling for long after the kid leaves.

At least one of the nurses actually recognises him from the year before, and Steve can’t decide if he wants to hear her theories about him or not. Probably not. She looks at him with the kind of fascinated suspicion that almost has him announcing that he has, at least, won one fight since the last time he was here. He resists, but only barely. 

Lucas shuffles in the day after Robin leaves, and Steve musters up some kind of levity, if only for his young visitor’s sake. 

“Sinclair!” And maybe to prove how much better he is at talking than the last time they were in these exact positions. “Hey, man.”

“Hey, Steve.” Lucas produces a car magazine, a pack of soft mints, and a plastic pony head. “The horse is from Erica.”

Steve frowns at it. “Has it been decapitated?”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

“I think it’s like the mafia thing. I was actually supposed to put it on your pillow while you were sleeping.”

Steve closes his eyes. “Do it.”

“No, dumbass.” 

He opens up again. “Wait, am I in trouble with Erica?”

“I dunno, are you?”

“I just don’t know what I did to deserve a My Little Mafia calling card.”

“Who knows why Erica does the things she does.”

Steve grins. “Nobody. Maybe she’s just now realising that her lifetime supply of ice cream is going to run dry. Although that isn’t really my fault.” 

Lucas smirks.

“Thanks for the other stuff,” Steve says. 

“It’s cool.” 

“How is everyone?” Steve props himself up a bit higher. “I’m going out of my mind here.”

“Everyone’s… well, most of us are kind of okay,” Lucas says. “Nobody’s seen El. Only Will. She’s staying at theirs. And Max…” 

Steve thinks about the last time he saw Max, tearstained and shaking into Nancy’s coat while they waited for the ambulances to get to the mall. There’s something there he can’t quite connect with, something he’ll probably never understand because Billy wasn’t his stepbrother, but he knows enough about sharing a roof with someone you hate to know that it’s never as simple as hating them, never as cut-and-dry as you’d think. Besides, no kid should ever see anyone die, much less die the way Billy had. 

He realises that Lucas never finished the sentence. “Max?” he echoes. 

“It’s bad. I don’t know how to help her,” Lucas admits. 

“Well, maybe you can’t, for now.” 

Lucas nods. 

“Have they had a funeral?”

“It’s next week. I know I have to go, but…”

“You don’t _ have _ to go,” Steve cuts in. 

“I _ should_, though. Max is my girlfriend. And my friend.”

By unpleasant contrast, Steve is reminded of himself at fourteen, and can’t imagine that particular dual concept even entering his mind. Actually, he wonders if it’s where it went wrong with Nancy. Think about that one later. 

“So I’m going. But his dad will be there, so…yeah. And also, it’s like, I get that Max is sad but I can’t… I _ hated _ him so much.”

“Yeah.”

“Funerals are for paying respect, right? And so I’m out here trying to think of any reason that I’d respect Billy, and the only thing I can think of is that, you know, his dad is an even shittier piece of shit than he was, and he was probably the whole reason Billy was like that. But then… he’s gonna _ be _ there. Mr Hargrove, I mean. Acting sad and acting like he cared about Billy at all. And acting like he’s not… like he’s not going to take it out on Max now.”

Steve sees real fear in Lucas’s eyes. “You think he’d hit Max?” 

“I don’t know. Maybe not. I just hate that she lives with him.” 

“Yeah. Me too.” 

Lucas sighs. “So, I just go to the funeral to be there for Max. I know that. But I can’t go and stand with her, can I? ’Cause he’ll see. And he won’t say anything right there. He’ll say something when they’re at home.”

_ Or do something_, Steve adds, and he knows the same thought has occurred to Lucas. 

“What day next week?” Steve asks. “What day is the funeral?”

“Wednesday.”

“Okay,” says Steve. “By then, I’ll be out of here. So we go, okay, but if you have to leave or anything, I’ll cover for you.” 

“Okay.” 

Lucas opens his mouth to say something more.

“Don’t,” says Steve. 

“Thanks,” says Lucas anyway. 

“I said don’t,” says Steve, and with mock self-pity, adds, “Why do none of you kids ever listen to me?” 

* * *

Wednesday dawns bright, because summer hasn’t quite died yet. All of the Party is in attendance, and the two girls are stuck fast to one another throughout, which is good, Steve thinks, for Max and for Lucas and probably El, too. Dustin, Mike and Will form a huddle around Lucas before the service starts, and Steve stations himself not far behind them. Robin arrives separately and stands at his elbow, close enough that technically they’re touching by the fibres of their clothes, even if he can’t actually feel her there, per se. Robin has that down to a fine art, and one day he’ll work out whatever fancy metaphor she’s going for, but for now it’s nice to know that she’s close. 

They’re standing just far enough away that Steve can tune out of the service fairly easily, and he can’t help thinking about the fact this is the second time he’s attended a funeral of someone he was at school with. There’s something distinctly not right about that, regardless of how he’d acted towards Barb or how Billy had acted towards him. This is the kind of thing that messes people up for the rest of their lives, he thinks. The normal people, even. The people who don’t know. 

He catches a breath of a psalm on the breeze and adds Barb’s name to it, too. He watches Neil Hargrove stand with his arm around his wife and hates him on Billy’s behalf. He watches El stroke Max’s hair, and knows that positions will be reversed when somebody finally gives the go-ahead for Hopper’s funeral, can’t even think of that now. He hopes—

A sharp nudge from Robin brings him back to the present just in time to see Lucas separate from the pack. He expects the boy to head straight for the hills, but instead he stops in front of Steve and looks at him with big, pleading eyes. There will be no ‘covering’ for him, no letting him leave alone. 

Steve gives Robin a look that she immediately understands, because she’s amazing like that, and she goes to stand with the other boys, reassuring them silently that Lucas is in good hands. Steve hopes he won’t make her a liar. 

“Come on, kid,” he says, quietly, and takes Lucas further from the funerary gathering, out under the trees that line the yard. Lucas leans miserably against the largest tree trunk, and Steve sets a palm on his shoulder, squeezes a little. “Tough day, huh.” 

“I don’t even… I can’t _ think_,” says Lucas. 

“Yeah,” says Steve. 

“The other night I dreamed he was in my room. And not - you know, the thing. Just him. But then I thought–” 

Steve is pretty sure he knows. 

“So I’m just as bad as him,” says Lucas. “Because I’m glad he’s gone.” 

“That’s… _ so _ not true,” says Steve. “Tell me you know that isn’t true.” 

Lucas doesn’t. 

“Well, _ I _ know it isn’t,” Steve continues, “And I think if— I think if all you were was _ glad_, you wouldn’t be torturing yourself. You wouldn’t care.” 

“Maybe I don’t,” Lucas sniffs.

“Oh, yeah. This is really coming across like someone who doesn’t care,” Steve says, keeping the sarcasm soft-edged. 

Steve takes a deep breath, and tries for something he’s been drafting over and over in his head since the moment Billy picked up a child and slammed him into a wall. 

“This is - different for you, in a way I can’t - I’ll never have to go through what Billy did to you,” he says. “So maybe I can’t understand, not the whole way. Billy didn’t - well, he probably _ did _ hate me, but not for anything I couldn’t have changed. You know? So I don’t want this to be, like, the white guy says you’re wrong to feel what you feel. But I need you to know, Lucas, you’re _ nothing _ like him.” 

Lucas separates from the tree he’s leaning against, and for one terrible moment Steve thinks he’s going to leave. He lets out a breath of relief over Lucas’s head when, instead, the kid wraps his arms around him, returning to the embrace that’s getting to be almost as familiar as Dustin’s, for all it comes so seldom. 

“You want to go home?” Steve asks. 

“No. I want to see Max at the end.” 

“Okay.” 

As they stand there under the branches, Steve can’t help but be aware of how powerless he is in the face of all Lucas will have to go through, how he’s been well-placed a couple of times but can’t hope to protect him, not forever, can’t even be sure of the next time. How it’s not just Lucas, even, but Erica as well and countless other kids growing up in a world whose Billys won’t all die young, but instead grow into Neils who pass the poison down the line, how even if he could be omnipresent with a bat full of nails, it wouldn’t be enough. 

“Just so you know,” Lucas says, wiping his face after they finally part, “You’re nothing like Billy, either.”

Steve sets Neil Hargrove next to George Harrington in his mind and decides that everything’s a spectrum, that nobody can ever know, really, how they’d have turned out if they were starting a few inches over to the left. 

He gives Lucas a crooked smile, because ‘thanks’ is not the word and he doesn’t know what is. 

“I think they’re finishing,” says Steve, glancing back the way they’d come. People are splitting off, or shaking hands, and there’s a certain unmistakable clump of kids which, even from this distance, is clearly one part less than whole. 

He follows Lucas back to them, watches as he slips in between Max and Dustin. Robin, who’s stayed nearby as well, curls one arm around Steve’s back. He lifts his shoulder, places his arm round hers. Thankfully, he thinks, this is one height ratio that won’t change much from here on out, because everyone else is gaining on him far too fast for comfort. 

Still, he reflects, as Dustin lifts his head from the group and insistently waves the two of them over, most things that matter, you never get too tall for. 


End file.
